Midnighters: A Submerged Secret
by 30CK
Summary: It's been 2.5 years since they seperated. Dess finally decides to venture off on her own. In California, dark plans are plotted and it seems a Mindcaster is helping the Darklings. With a new Californian team, Dess has to combat an ancient evil.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"…36001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274…" A young woman, roughly age 17, sat cross-legged on top of her bed, her hands folded in her lap, numbers softly tumbling out of her mouth.

Reciting the first million digits of pi was her own little way of meditating, and it usually worked. What it wasn't doing, however, what was it was supposed to be doing. It was supposed to be slowly calming her down, allowing her to let her thoughts and calculations to run uninterrupted through her mind. It wasn't working. It was getting rather repetitive and annoying, a feeling that Desdemona had never once associated with the glory of math.

It had been two and a half years (a lucky 910 days, if you wanted to spend any amount of thought to think about that) since the Midnighters broke up, and it had left her helplessly alone. She longed for a new friend, a fellow Midnighter preferably. More specifically, a fellow Polymath, or at least someone who would be interested in helping her unravel the secrets of the blue time. Even with her heightened brain power, the blue time was proving to be a very stubborn being. She needed someone to talk to, at the very least. Who was left, her parents? Pfft. Sure, there was Jessica's little sister, but she wasn't a great help or even a great distraction. All she talked about was Jess: "When is Jess coming home? Have you figured anything out yet? Hurry up! Have you found a way for me to get into the blue time?" Whine, whine, whine, bitch, bitch, bitch.

There was also Rex left, but he was left with his own demons to take care. He was still a little crazy from his continuing war with his Darkling half. It's not like Rex offered any time away from his hard, hard task of taking care of two brain-damaged old farts. The only good thing about that is that it almost kept him sane. Almost being the operative word. He tended to lash out at Dess when she tried to talk to him about the blue time, Jessica, and especially Melissa.

Even though her boredom overpowered her loneliness, Dess still had to admit to herself that she missed them all. She missed Jonathan Martinez, the gravity-reducing Acrobat.

She missed Jessica Day, the problematic and problem-solving Flame-bringer.

Hell, she even missed Melissa Whatever-her-last-name-is, the almighty Bitch Goddess and Mindcaster. You know, to an extent. It was much more fun and a lot less pitiful hating her guts when she was actually there.

Dess let out a sigh. There were no more brave and/or foolish Darklings that came out during midnight. No psycho-kitties to burn with Hypochondriac. No giant mini-spider-filled arachnids to hurl Resplendently Scintillating Illustrations at. No huge problems. No big battles. No crazy adventures with the others. No Jon, Melissa, or Jess. In other words, no fun.

Dess had to allow herself a smile as she remembered that she had finally given Jess a nickname. Jonathan was Flyboy, Melissa was, and always would be, the Bitch Goddess. Rex she had given the name Dr. Jekyll to after everyone went their separate ways. And Jessica had since been dubbed Sparky. 99.9 percent of her reasoning was because of her awesome right hand.

That hand had to be one of the coolest things Dess had ever seen, in midnight or out. It was all shiny, and electricity was practically pumping through her veins; you could literally see it pulsing in her arm if you managed to look without burning your retinas. That's precisely why Dess had brought her blacked-out glasses into midnight every time since she had first seen the Flame-bringer's arm.

Dess had only seen it in action once, just before everyone went their separate ways. Everyone had been getting ready to say the soppy, teary goodbyes (something she never partook in…did that mean she was heartless?) when a bunch of Slithers had burst through the ground. That was a rather new tactic and, needless to say, it left everyone rather surprised. They had launched themselves at Jessica. Dess was busy wondering if they were trying to do a kamikaze kind of thing, if they were frantic, or if they were just plain stupid. She had slipped her sunglasses on – a good idea on her part.

Jessica had quickly removed her hand from her pocket, its semi-permanent resting place. She had raised her hand, palm up, then unleashed a fury that would leave any Darkling in the hour as dust. The air had crackled with energy, and Dess felt her hair rise up slightly, even the little ones on the back of her neck. Lightning had raced from the middle of Jessica's hand, bolts of electricity ricocheting from Slither to Slither, turning every enemy it touched to dust. It was over in less than 1.15892 seconds (and Dess knew it), but it didn't stop it from being impressive.

"…8925903600113305305…48820466521384146951941511…609…9…9……."

She couldn't remember which number came next.

Dess had a miniature panic attack at that thought. She had never missed a number! EVER!

Now, if this were a normal situation where she was actually trying to calm herself instead of attempting to ignore the isolation that had wrapped itself around her heart, that thought would have led her to a quick and horrifying end. But, since she had other things on her mind, other things that were more important than math, she refrained from killing herself. Grinding her teeth as she mentally admitted that some things could be more important than numbers, she opened her eyes and looked around.

Her room had remained relatively unchanged through the rush of time. Colored glass, carefully arranged to form a thirteen-pointed star, decorated the window, sending rainbows of moonlight inside. Ada Lovelace, as stoic as ever, sat on her desk, twirling delicately in a random motion (Dess had made sure of that). Rapidly Scintillating Illustrations sat in the corner, having no further use except to mime a few songs on (something she did frequently when she was _really_ bored) and be looked upon happily as its creator relived the fond memories. Hundreds of small, metallic, weaponized objects rested on the floor next to it, slowly building a stack to the ceiling. A harsh wind blew through the house, threatening to tear the weak wood apart as per usual.

Dess herself had changed a little. She no longer wore the long, black dresses or anything else that fell into the frilly Goth-style category. She had thrown that all out (to pretty much everyone's joy), replacing them with jeans and plenty of mathematical T-shirts. They mostly had pi on them, or really complicated equations – to a normal person, that is. Losers. She had let her hair grow out a little, letting it fall delicately past her shoulders. Not obscenely long, but a good portion longer than before. She still, obviously, wore her thirteen ultra-lucky metal necklaces, each bead on them imprinted with anti-Darkling patterns or mathematical symbols. As always, a self-satisfied and all-knowing smirk decorated her face whenever she dealt with the inferiority of the population.

But enough about that.

Dess turned and lowered her feet to the creaking floor, careful not to step on the welder's torch that sat comfortably by her bed. She used it very rarely any more, usually just to fashion herself jewelry or to touch up on some of her smaller creations to make them more powerful. After all, you never knew when a stray Darkling might rear its ugly head. Or when an adventure might jump out and thrust itself in your face.

In a sudden sense of spontaneity, Dess grabbed her jacket and threw it around her shoulders, opening the door and quietly stepping out. Her parents never liked it when she decided to sneak out in the middle of the night, but oh well. Screw them.

She stared out into the sky, watching each star twinkle. She smiled, remembering that when she was six years old, she had spent a midnight on the roof, trying to count every star in the sky. She had gotten to 23,486,509,817 stars before midnight ended and things started moving again. For most people, that would have been an astonishing feat. But not for a Polymath. She could count to obscenely high numbers _and_remember exactly which ones she had already passed. By her observations, she had only counted…one twentieth of the stars that she could see. And she couldn't see all the stars in the sky; she could only see…say, a fourth of the total stars around the earth, based on the four sections that the earth could be divided into. Using that math, there would have to be more than 1,878,920,785,360 stars that are visible from around the earth. Obviously, there are many, many more than that. But from an observer that could somehow see from all directions of the globe like a normal human, there would be around two trillion stars visible in the sky.

Dess checked her watch, still smiling. The device, engraved with anti-Darkling patterns, showed that it was seven minutes to midnight. The smile vanished, replaced with a rather unappealing grimace. An agonizingly precise 436 seconds till silence.

Not that there was anything to do anymore.

She put a hand into her pocket, comforted by the ever-present weight of Geostationary, the handheld Global Positioning System that she had nicked from her father's map-filled drawers. The little device had been slowly gathering dust and dirt, having nothing else to do in the two-and-a-half years of disuse. Dess sighed, feeling slightly guilty that she hadn't been living up to her Polymath name. She hadn't been outside of Oklahoma, mapping the _exact_ coordinates of any midnight or Darkling raids that might have happened in other places. She hadn't been frantically calculating the odds that the Darklings still had something up their shadowy sleeves. She hadn't even been bothering to think about how many newly-awoken Midnighters there would be, although she did give an estimate to Melissa before everyone split.

Once again, she hadn't been doing the math. That thought was slowly driving her insane. "That. Is. It," she stated to the night. She was going to get out of this town if it killed her. "I haven't had a call from the crew in a year, Rex is an asshole, albeit a deadly asshole, and Bixby sucks major monkey nuts. I'm outta here."

She'd have another whole hour to travel, not like the hundreds of stiffs.

Whirling around, she ran back inside, not caring about the loud squeaks that the floorboards made. The wind did worse. She picked up her two enormous duffel bags and her extra-large backpack. Flinging her closet open, she ripped five pairs of shirts, pants, and socks off their respective places, tossing them into the bag. She also threw in eight pairs of underwear (nothing provocative, ya freaks) and two bars of deodorant. She knew she'd miss air conditioning as soon as she started sweating, no matter what the Queen Bitch said about it being evil. With that, she zipped up one duffel bag and moved on to the other.

In number two had to go food, water, and plenty of pens, pencils, and paper. You never knew when you would have to write a _lot._

"Food," she mumbled, walking quickly into the kitchen. She carelessly threw open the cupboard doors, barely registering the amount of noise she was making, and started grabbing most of the non-perishable food. Canned items, tightly-wrapped-up bread, chips, beef jerky, peanut butter. Stuff like that. She tossed the horde loudly into the second bag before going back to her room.

In her backpack she shoved handfuls of books. Mostly geographical and topological maps, but a large portion was also held by philosophy, paradoxes, and physics. Advanced physics, of course. Dess loved physics. She added a few of her own written works, including a dictionary of tridecalogisms, for those who couldn't think of them on the spot, and every single scrap of information about the Darklings. She had managed to weasel everything out of Rex and Madeline only just recently, a fact she was very proud of.

There was only one thing left: her weapons. What to leave and what to take? Rapidly Scintillating Illustrations had to come, no argument. So did Hypochondriac – they held memories. And memories weren't such a bad thing to hold on to.

Shrugging, Dess kicked RSI into her grasp, twirling it expectedly in the air before collapsing it and shoving it into her jackets arm-sleeve. She had since attached a small holster inside there, allowing for easier transportation and more fluidity while shifting from helpless meal to a Darkling grim reaper.

Hypochondriac was tossed into the bag with her clothes. Rust on clothes she didn't care about, but if dark-red smears appeared on her books, she would have to kill something. Messily.

She also grabbed handfuls of her smaller creations, stuffing them into the many many pockets of her cargo pants.

Dess glanced at the dusty mirror. "Not bad." That was true. "It certainly doesn't look like I'm ready to kick major Darkling ass." Also true. Her eyes traveled from her reflection to a small figurine. Ada Lovelace. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like you're not coming too," Dess said, carefully picking her up and setting her in the first duffel bag. Ada Lovelace was squished between pairs of socks and two black shirts. "Sorry," Dess said, shrugging, grinning helplessly. "Everywhere else was full."

Most normal people would immediately think that Dess was completely insane if they ever caught wind that she talked to a small replica of one of her biggest heroes. But then again, most normal people didn't have to put up with the emotional baggage of friends going about the country, helping kids break in a new dream world or deciding that they were going to find some new guy to kick Darkling ass with.

She snatched up both bulky bags and, with her backpack strapped onto her as well, stomped out of her room. She was mentally wishing for an Acrobat to appear in…thirty-seven seconds, fifty-three milliseconds. Less gravity was less weight, and that was something that could be useful. She grunted slightly as she filled her lungs with air, glaring at the open door in front of her.

"GOODBYE!" Dess yelled with as much volume as she could muster. A satisfying squawk and a hard thud reached her ears. "Musical," she muttered, stepping out of the door.

She could hear her parents scrambling through the house, reaching the doorway in record time. She didn't bother looking at them as she shouldered her physical burden and kept walking. "Twenty-three…"

"Where do you think you're going?!"

"Away," Dess replied shortly. "Sixteen…"

"You're running away?!" one of them cried in exasperation.

"Nope. Walking. It's easier," she said, smirking. "Nine…"

"What are you counting down for?"

"Midnight." Dess grinned as she the numbers kept descending. "Three…"

"Get ba-"

Silence.

Desdemona smiled for the first time in three months, eleven days, twenty-one hours and forty-five minutes.

She was leaving Bixby – nothing had ever felt so good.

What was California like this time of year?

-------

Far, far away, in a run-down building near the ocean, an elderly gentleman sat in the pitch-black, cement-walled room. His long, thin fingers massaged his temples as he reached out. He had felt someone probe his thoughts a little while ago, a light touch on his mind. And that meant that there was another Mindcaster snooping around. He had already had to force seven others to disappear in the last year alone.

He could not have yet another pest gumming up his plans, but even after three hours of searching he could not locate the source. The problem with pinpointing the exact location of this specific "Midnighter" was that he/she had managed to find a way to completely suppress their thoughts from any other method of casting. The foreign presence had been coming from somewhere in Middle America, that much he knew. But it was hard to get any more specific.

"When everything else fails, go broad," he muttered quietly. He ran a hand through the remnants of his white hair as he looked at the far wall. He pressed a button on the arm of his chair and watched over steepled fingers as the wall was washed in blue. A small chunk of rock that had just started falling halted its motion as it, too, became a dull blue color.

Immediately, shapes began to pour into the dark room, ranging from giant panthers to hundreds of smaller snakes.

"You," the man said, his voice demanding attention, "will search all of Southern Middle America for a Mindcaster that has managed to block any casting attempts on themselves. You," he continued, speaking directly to the largest of purple-eyed beasts, "are the only one able to see the fluctuations of midnight. As such, you shall lead the battalion to the Mindcaster's residence. Look for a particularly large difference; it's probably at a point where midnight is the closest to the ground. I believe I managed to pick up something similar a few years ago."

He flicked his eyes back at the wall.

"Now go."

And in an instant, he was alone once again. His steel-blue eyes softening, he removed a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

"Hello, son? Yes, I'm sorry, but I won't be able to come visit this month. No – yes, I wanted to see you as well, but something big has come up. Something that could very well change many lives. Yes. Yes. Okay. Goodbye."

He clicked it off, put it back in its place, and waited.

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Yes, I have lengthened the first chapter and added a new little something. Alright, Dess is going to California because I've only lived in Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, and California. So I know a bit about California. Specifically, she is headed to a city with coordinates of a twelth divisibility. Cause that's where bad things happen. Since nothing's happening in Bixby, she'll go to some other place. David comes in next chapter, and Jacky'll come in some other time. Maybe chapter three or four. Maybe later. There'll probably be some other additions to the group (probably a mindcaster and an acrobat cause they're cool) and I'm still trying to think of even more powers. It's hard; I can't do lunatic things like astral projection or X-men powers, cause most of those transcend reality. And yes, I know that Midnighters transcend reality as well, but mostly I don't want to be ripping from one source in particular. So...ideas would be appreciated. Yeah. I'll try to redo chapter two as well, cause that's WAY too short. Bye.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

A shrill ringing shattered the darkness around him, waking him from his slumber. His body responded reflexively as he jerked up into a sitting position and turned his head to glare at the Evil Thing. It was still beeping. He curled his hand into a fist and raised it above him.

Hand met plastic. The plastic lost the fight.

The shrieking was instantly replaced by a slowing whine as the Evil Thing power faded into techno-heaven. "Much better," the man said, shaking his hand. It was throbbing a little, but smashing the Evil Thing, his ever-busted and annoying alarm clock, had definitely been worth it.

He managed to get a look at the time before the numbers flickered and died. It was just after six o'clock.

David Essal sighed heavily. Being an author sucked. It's worse when you've only just hit nineteen and a half – and already written two books. Publicists were parasites, and so were the fans that adored his work.

He shuddered as he thought about the twenty-something fan girls that had been to his first book signing. They had squealed loudly, jumping up and down as they yelled his name, along with phrases like "I love you", "Let me have your baby", and of course "Can I have your autograph?!" That last one was one of the stupidest things he had ever heard. Of course she would get his autograph. Everyone else was.

"Crap," he muttered. His new story was coming along rather slowly, even though he had a very detailed and distinct basis for it. He had already titled it as well. Midnight Mystery. Not very original, but it served its purpose. The guys at the publishing company seemed to like it as well, and kept pestering him about where he got his ideas. He always said dreams.

But that wasn't the truth at all.

See, almost two years ago, David had woken up at 12:00 exactly (his clock, though frequently broken, had never lied to him before), only to find out that there was absolutely no noise. At all. No rumbling of late-night drivers, no barking of overgrown dogs or yowling of pissed-off cats. It had been completely silent.

Being a writer had made David almost infinitely curious. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the almost-total darkness of his small, one-story (plus attic) home, obviously making it difficult to see what the hell was going on. So he had grabbed his cane and shuffled through the house, jerking on the handle of his door once he reached it. Once he opened his eyes, he felt his mouth fall open.

Everything had been blue. But that hadn't even been the weird part, as weird as that truly was. A late-night jogger was stock-still on the sidewalk, still in mid-stride. The cord from the iPod headphones (the term 'ear buds' can go screw itself with a wooden spoon) trailed behind him. Beads of sweat were hovering in the air, glistening beautifully. It had been rather disturbing to think of sweat as beautiful.

That had been a while ago, and the same sort of thing had happened every night, always at midnight.

David shivered again as a fan boy flashed in his mind's eye. That was quickly followed by a freak dressed up as a character from his book. Fans and cosplaying fools were truly the work of the devil.

"I require sustenance," David said, removing any terrifying specters from his thoughts and, at the same time, displaying his rather odd way of speaking. "My dream shall be made so in the nutritional-maintenance center." He only did it when he was alone, or with someone that he was comfortable with. He never did it with strangers, unless his ultimate goal was to freak them out.

Compared to some other authors that he knew of, David thought himself to be exceptionally normal. He knew one guy, Allan Frolic, who had a rather annoying tic. Sometimes it got so bad that you couldn't understand what he was attempting to say. A columnist for a magazine that David subscribed to had to step on every crack she saw, be it on the sidewalk, driveway, or linoleum floor. Indeed, compared to them, David felt like an average guy.

He snatched up his cane and swung his legs onto the floor. Wincing slightly, he let most of his weight rest on his left foot. He looked at his right leg with a small frown. Why couldn't it just heal? It felt fine at midnight – every single time. He stood and let out a small hiss of curses. Digging his cane into the carpet, he stepped with his left foot, muttering "ow" every time his right foot came into contact with the floor.

Not everything about a bum leg was bad, though. He did, after all, get a cane. That was cool. It was a telescopic model, aluminum with a rubber grip, adjusting from thirty inches to forty-five. It was good n' sturdy, silver in color, and comfy to hold. It also made an excellent weapon (the press and his fans didn't know about that – it'd make quite a mess).

Arriving in the kitchen, David made a beeline to his fridge. He opened it and looked around sadly. "Have to make a mission to the market," he said cheerfully, grabbing a jug of orange juice and popping the top off. David wasn't normally left-handed, but years of experience had made him almost ambidextrous. He shut the refrigerator door and settled down in the lone chair as he took a swig of OJ.

A loud crash from his backyard distracted him, and he cursed as the gallon fell from his grasp and hit the floor, ejecting its contents around the kitchen. Ignoring it for the moment, he gingerly pushed himself out of his seat and made his way to the back door. He unlocked it and swung it open, sweeping his eyes across the out-of-control yard. They stopped on the gigantic tree that stretched into his yard from his neighbor's. One of the branches had torn off. That was all.

Letting out a sigh of relief, David disappeared back into his house. There was still orange juice to salvage, after all.

-------

Dess stared at the book in her hand. Her book, as it turned out. It was her own personal map, for when she actually needed it. It had _everything_: detailed pictures (hand-drawn) with every coordinate cautiously inked onto the page, close-ups of everywhere imaginable, and topological parts of maps, so she could see all the caves, crevices, and streams.

She had her heart set on California, though she didn't really know why. Dess' subconscious idly wondered if the Queen Bitch back home had planted a few ideas in her mind. Her conscious mind took no notice, however, and continued to let her eyes travel the state of California.

There! Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of the coordinates she needed. It was perfect, sitting directly on the intersection of the 36 degrees north and 120 degrees west. Darkling Central, as far as she was concerned. It was indeed the perfect spot. She patted her duffel bag, feeling the comforting indentation of Ada Lovelace pushing back out.

Dess was going to Madera County, California.

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David rarely did anything interesting in midnight. Usually he would just tour the town, admiring how the moon, hanging in the eye like a negative of the sun, seemed to suck up all the color in the area when it rose. One night he had taken a knife with him, dragging it across a tree trunk. He was pleased to see that color was returned to the wood for half a second before it was stolen away by the moon.

He had also noticed that midnight seemed to be controlled by the moon, or at least follow the same pattern. When midnight started, the moon was just rising, and when midnight was ending, the moon set.

When it started and ended, there was almost a pulse of energy that made everything stop or spring back into life once again. Normal people didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, except for the few cases when he would just appear out of thin air right next to them – to their eyes, at least. Those times were satisfying in their own, creepy way.

There had been one time when something had moved. Only one time in the two and a half years that he'd been wandering through it.

He had been walking through the park at the time, casually tapping every floating leaf with his cane, enjoying how they tumbled quickly to the ground. His burst of laughter was cut short as the ground started to shake slightly. He could feel a tremor running up his legs, almost making him fall down. And that's when he saw it.

Pacing behind the trees, glaring at him with an alarmingly violet eye, had been the biggest feline that he had ever seen. Even from five yards away, he could see the terrifying bloodlust filling its eyes. He could easily pick out the rippling muscles underneath its rippling black fur coat. It looked like a steel spring, coiled and ready to be unleashed.

And it did.

With another deep, rumbling growl, the panther had swung its front paw, tearing its claws through two trees. They toppled to the ground as the cat began to move forward.

"Whoa," David had said, rather frightened. Luckily, the nervous, panicky, semi-delirious part of the human consciousness kicked in, giving him exactly what he needed. "Superpowerful kitty."

Effect was immediate. He could feel power rushing through his right arm, as if he'd triggered something mentally hidden from him. He had looked down, obviously puzzled, and blinked. Twice. His cane was surrounded by bright blue fire. Cerulean embers lept of and skittered on the ground, leaving red scars on the dull blue pavement.

He looked back up at the approaching cat. It was closing in quickly, but he could feel that its attention was warily directed at his cane. He lifted it up and spun it in the air, smiling in spite of the situation as the giant panther stopped in its tracks. David had walked cautiously but purposefully towards his adversary, gripping his cane like a sword.

The cat was afraid. That much could be seen based on its wide purple eyes, its flattened ears, and the hunched and cowering frame. It let out a quiet hiss but refused to back down. Its eyes followed every motion of the burning metallic weapon.

He had struck, cracking the blazing aluminum against its head. The fire lept from his cane, burning the fur from its head with a disgusting smell. It had yowled loudly, sending a shudder through him, as it moved quickly. It had lashed out with its paw, swiping at his right leg. A sharp claw had caught him just below the knee – nothing serious.

"'Tis a scratch!" he had exclaimed as the panther gave another agonizing yowl, bounding into the night. Its screeches of pain were heard for the remainder of midnight.

David shook his head, stopping the memory from going any further. That had been the first and the last time that he had seen anything out of the ordinary – if you could call anything about an extra hour in a day that only he seemed to be able to experience normal, that is.

He sighed, grabbing his coat and slipping it on, not bothering to button it. He picked up his bag from its ever-present resting place by the door and exited his house.

There was nourishment to attain, and the only way to do that was grocery shopping. Too bad he hated supermarkets.

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Yo. Again. That was quick, wasn't it? I think so. Yes, David's a screwed up author and an idiot (who apparently watches Monty Python!), and that's why I like him. Obviously, he said a 13 letter word and _woosh_ he had a super weapon of kitty-death. Dess and Dave'll meet next chapter. Promise.

I already know his power. It's cooool.

Bye.


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